Doritos

Challenge

International flavoured tortilla chip brand, Doritos (PepsiCo), were facing 2018 without a new product to launch and in the absence of something new to promote the marketing team at Doritos knew they needed to invest in a strategy and campaign delivery that would swell online engagement with the brand.

They needed to create something memorable that would compete with their hugely successful product launch TV campaigns from the last few years.

“Since Doritos has launched in the UK its always been about bringing the party. As a brand we stand for those moments in your life when you’re having the most fun.” Zoe Plummer, Digital Marketing Manager at PepsiCo

Strategy

Doritos partnered with Jaywing to create a competition to find the UK’s biggest Doritos Superfan – inspired by a Super Bowl ATL tv ad for the brand from 2011 featuring a Doritos-loving office worker licking his colleague’s fingers to get the ‘best part’ of the triangular-chip-eating experience.

Jaywing also realised that they could capitalise on the brand’s identity as a snack “For the bold” and use the new campaign as a celebration of those willing to go all the way for a good time.

“Doritos fans really do love the product and we use this to ensure we provide content we know will provoke a strong reaction and they will get behind to make the story stronger”. Amy Naughton, Client Services Director at Jaywing

Members of the public were invited to complete an online application form to become the ultimate superfan. Doritos tested their fans’ loyalty, rewarding the most devoted fan in the UK with a years’ supply of Doritos and a huge £18,000, as well as a chance to get behind the scenes of the brand and taste the newest flavours before anyone else.

There were three stages to the process, interested candidates had to:

complete an online application form, in which they had to answer questions about the brand and pitch a new flavour, with a name and marketing plan

take part in telephone interview

and in the third stage, the final three had to complete a face-to-face interview day. Comedian Katherine Ryan was selected as the celebrity face of the campaign, and hosted the ‘job interviews’ for the shortlisted ‘candidates’ for the role.

Campaign

A significant aspect of the campaign was making sure that those entering the competition took it as seriosuly as they would a job application. In order to achieve this the competition was advertised on LinkedIn, job sites such as Reed, and in Google Search results for phrases like “best graduate jobs”.

The campaign’s main piece of content was a two-minute film with clips of the three finalists being grilled by Ryan – followed by a 30-second film a week later in which Faith is announced as the winner.

Choosing the right interviewer was a hugely important part of the process, as Doritos “wanted someone with strong comedy value cut-through, rather than going down the route of just a social media influencer”. Additionally, Ryan is a “self-confessed Doritos fan”, and her genuine affinity with the brand was definitely a must that fostered credibility.

“One way in which brands struggle is when they get the balance wrong – they’re either compromising with the talent they’re using, or using the wrong format or story. Some brands use talent that overshadows the brand.” Amy Naughton, Client Services Director at Jaywing

Results

Two weeks after the video went live the results of the campaign were already staggering, it had:

35 million video views

121 million impressions across all campaign activity

and a view-through rate on the video of 30 per cent (usually 15 per cent in comparison).

The long-term business results of the campaign also include:

an increase in the brand penetration since the start of the year to 38.7 per cent of households (up from 37 per cent last year) and equivalent to 250,000 new households

an increased purchase frequency and now has the highest frequency among brands in sharing-size packs

and a 1.2 per cent increase in total brand sales in the year to date, despite the Heatburst product launch significantly boosting sales in the previous year.

“Ultimately, we are a big company and we want to sell our products. But even on a campaign that wasn’t focused on selling a new product, that was more about brand equity, we saw some really strong results from a business point of view.”Zoe Plummer, Digital Marketing Manager at PepsiCo